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Just wondering how you guys got involved in computer security or phreaking?

I personally got involved in it through watching my older friends when I was about 10 then I got involved myself later when about 11 - 12 with them.

From then on got interested more and more in security and computers more, kept progressing. And still going strong.

Now whats ur excuse?

The use of "hacker" to mean "security breaker" is a confusion on the part of the mass media. We hackers refuse to recognize that meaning, and continue using the word to mean, "Someone who loves to program and enjoys being clever about it."--------------------"Its not a bug, its a feature" (Epic Games)

huh, gee, kinda hard to say. I grew up in a computer-oriented family. My dad has been a programmer (mostly in main frames) ever since I can remember. So I've been exposed to the dos days when dos was king and windows 3.1 and IBM OS/2 Warp and all that old shiat. However, I never got into the computers aspect. I was just a kid and didn't want to sit in front of some old boring computer unless it's to play games. And when things went wrong, I contentedly relied on my dad to fix it.

Then sophomore year in high school came along and I had computer classes! It was just some boring learning how to use various office applications so I started to tinker around a bit. I remember fondly my excitement in discovering before a friend of mine on how to show the "hidden files". Also, I had gotten engrossed in "finding" all kinds of files on the harddrive through the open file dialog from Word. At first there didn't seem to be anything in the folders until I discovered the "All Files" item in the filter list box. I started deleting like mad - wondering what will happen. I felt really evil when I'd try to delete some files and windows would say "deleting these files may prevent windows from operating correctly" or "Access Denied - file is currently being used by windows". Nevertheless the computer started ****ing up, so I rebooted... it never came back up. My teacher was so puzzled when he said it seemed like somebody deleted a bunch of files. I pretended ignorance...

So at first the computer was just a curious little toy. My friend was a little more security-oriented and tried to show me late one night a port scanner he'd found (7th Sphere). I thought it pretty cool to see all those numbers flashing by, but didn't understand a bit of it and fell asleep while he was doing whatever exciting things he was doing.

By my senior year, I had learned a thing or two about the small closed network in my school's computer lab. It was getting very fascinating for me, and my friend's hacker talk interested me even more. I have an adventurous and curious type personality and love sneaking around doing things nobody can track. However, I had no idea on where to start, and programming was also getting very interesting...

It wasn't until my freshman year in college (2 years ago) that I actually started to get somewhere in hacking knowledge. During that year I had my taste and a few meals of hacking and found myself satisfied. I no longer want to progress much in the art of hacking, and am content with just reading and hearing about new techniques and such - without actually doing them. Instead, I devote my love to programming.

hehe, looks like I got a bit carried away there, but my fingers was itchy after 2 days of being stuck offline.

I got into computer through video Games. I was addicted to Video Games. Then My father bought a brand spanking new 286 P.C. This thing is so old now. Put it this way, instead of windows it has GeoWorks OS installed, It did had DOS on it though.

I was drawn to it. I started reading all the books that came with it and found one on this language that was per-installed on the machine.

My first program ever was something like that. Not sure if that would even work now. But I was totaly addicted to a new video Game after I wrote this little good for nothing program. I felt the power of creation and more than that, I felt possibility. The only limit I saw was imagination.

Since then there have been many many changes, but I have yet to lose intrest.

i was sitting in front of my tv watching cbc (canadian broadcasting corp.). it was a documentary about hackers. makers of BO were interviewed [READ ON. I AM NOT A LAMER]

the host of the show demonstrated how you could move the cursor of others computer using BO. i was facinated.

i searched hacking on the good ol, yahoo. and fortunately Guide to Harmless Hacking was the first hacking site i visisted. thanks to CM, i didnt ask lame questions like how to use BO, or how to hack hotmail. this story goes on untill this day...................UGN

Well, I got started with computers via what else...games. I played them over at my friends places untill i convinced my parents to get a computer also. The first we got was a mac, that must have been about, geez, 7 years ago maybe. I didn't really do much on that other than school work and games. Didn't even have an internet connection. I really got started when my dad got a windows box so he could work out of home, an internet connection too .

I started just playing games with this box also. Then it was making web pages for my clans in the games. I ran a few different websites by myself and with friends. Then came my interest in "hackers". I thought it would be cool if i could break into other people's computers, and I assumed there was just a few things you had to do and that's what hacking was. I search altavista for "how to hack" and so on. Luckily, as with blackh0le, the guides to harmless hacking. These led me along the right path. I got a shell account and stuff. Started reading and then cam across UGN. And this is where I have learned 99% of what I know. I owe a lot to UGN for the knowledge I have gained from the people here. Thanx!

i was interested in computers about 4 years ago, what got my into hacking, security and so on was a news article a saw on television, it was about when those guys DOS'ed out Yahoo, and then my mum got a new b/f and he was a hacker so ihe taught me a bit, and then from then on i learnt.

Kinda like SR I grew up in a computer friendly family. The first computer that we had was a TI80. No hard drive, like 4 k memory and the tapes were the size of 8 tracks. It all started there.

Then I just started playing around with things like dos and the ever popular quick dos. Then came high school and the AppleIIe's that they were trying to teach us basic on. I instead kept finding my way past the bios security into the admin menu.

Unfortunately there was no network to play with at high school because at that time there really wasn't much of an internet. After high school I just started taking my 386 laptop with the monochrome screen, 4 mb of ram and a 250 mb hard drive with win 3.1 and an external 2400 baud modem (top of the line all the way) just started connecting to phone lines and going from there.

I'm the type of person that hangs over the shoulder of the phone guy, the cable guy, etc. etc. to learn what they are doing. That pretty much sums it up I think. Well being stuck in a bed with nothing else to do for an entire year almost gives you plenty of time to learn and play.

Well, I saw this really cool movie once and I then I wanted to hack my schools computer and change my grades and then I came to UGN and everybody laughed at me so I wanted to learn how to hack so I can crash this website and I've been learning ever since but I still don't know how to do it maybe I should read more instead of looking at all this porn but I can't help it this asian chick is really hot........THAT'S WHY!

uhh....i wanted to write a virus and put it on my schools computers and steal every password typed in and have it email it to me. in apple basic. geez. but anyway, i got an internet connection at home so i tried dialing the connection number and making the tones on the modem with my phone. peaked my interest. ive been hooked since. i like porn too.

I got into computers several years ago (twelve years ago to be exact), when I got a Tandy computer for my birthday from my uncle, it had no hard drive, and you had to buy these big tapes to use as disk, and you could program it to do stuff, but it wouldn't save the settings once it was turned off unless you had a tape disk thingy... Then I met Bill Gates while I was out jogging with the German Chancellor and he told me to try this new O/S called 'Windows', so I did... Then years later a dude Nuked me, so I then vowed to learn all the ways of lamers and become the lamest lamer that ever was lame on this lame ****ing planet...

I got into computers a long time ago, when my Father started showing me around the system, and once I had sucked all the knowledge that he had out of him, I continued to advance my knowledge and have just been hooked since then, I started taking Computer Operations, Programming, Communications, Networking, Unix, Hardware, Software Classes, everything I could think off. I then took a job with Cisco Networking, and then left them to work for the Canadian Army, in communications, stuff like Computer Admin, Programming, EW (Electronic Warfare) and a whole bunch of other ****. I started coming to UGN a long time ago, back when Beard ran it, and when SR was a frequent vistor, but then got sent away on an oversea's mission, so I was gone for a while, then came back. Now im here........

Unless you try something to which you have not already succeeded ~ Then you shall NEVER grow